Grant County herald. [volume] (Lancaster, Wis.) 1850-1968, 1887-05-30


that the county might be preserved.
They were intelligent men accustomed
to think and act for Themselves and they
understood distinctly the causes of that
fearful struggle and estimated correctly
the disastrous Tcsults that must iner-
itably follow the overthrow and down
fall Of this government. And it is sate,to
say that in no country and at no period
Of time in the worlds history was there
ever marshaled an army composed of
such emil .4tened and intelligent men.
They fully understood and appreciated
the dangers andhardships that they must
of necessity undergo, and knowing all
these they yet went forth into the army
of freedom voluntarily. They fought
not for renown and glory but for princi-
pie, for freedom and equality. 1t was
just such an army as the Greeks had at
the pass of Thermopylae. And the re-
suits which have followed and VIII con-
tinue to follow forever their success are
and will be in all the coming ages as
fruitful in rich blessings and peI7minant
benefit to the human race as have been
the glorious achievements of the Greeks
just referred to.
The ability of the people to govern
themselves was subjected to the most
fearful and trying test. Ii had always
been contended by able and experienced
statesmen that the experiment of. self
government must inevitably result in
disastrous failure, that it would degener-
ate into anarchy, and the history of the
world, the experience of ages seemed to
Indicate that such would be the speedy
end to all attempts at self-government;
but when the crucial test came it was
our gloriously opportunity TO forever set
that question at rest, so far as any hu-
man question can be set at rest. The
emancipation of four millions of human
beings from chains of slavery, is in itself
the crowning,,glory of the age 1t isam
noteworthy fact that not one human
being was ever executed to satisfy the
outraged law. On the contrary, this
nation treated its conquered malcontents
with magnanimity not even dreamed
of by the most Imaginative poet.
After the war closed universal amnesty
was declared; the men who attempted to
destroy the government were rehabilitated
with all the rights of the citizenship they
had forfeited; not one life was sacrificed
BY the offended law. Yhey have been
pardoned, and to-day they enjoy all the
rights and privileges that the patriotic
citizens and soldiers enjoy. They GER
tainly could not ask for more, and the
nation could give no more if they did.
But while they have been thus merci-
fully dealt with, let them remember that
the loyal and patriotic men and women
of this nation have not forgotten their
treason; have not forgotten their bad
faith; have not forgotten their desperate
attempt to destroy this nation, to accom-
plish which they filed the peaceful
homes of this country with mourning
and with sorrow, and struck down in the
morning of life one million of patriots
and caused half million more to 90
along the weary journey of life MANNED,
crippled, disfigured; that they made or
phans of nearly million little helpless
children. Let them remember that the
loyal and patriotic people OF this undivid-
ed nation hate their doctrine of Mill
ification and secession. their doctrine of
the divine right of capital to own its
labor, their DESTROYED bulwark of chival-
ry, human slavery, with undated inten-
sity. That The lost cause is as odious to
the surviving comrades of this mighty
army of the honored dead whose graves
have been strewn with flowers all over
this broad land to-day as 1t was at
Petersburg, at Lookout Mountain, Get
tesburg, Vicksburg. Atlanta and Mt An
| Jacksonville. And let us remember that
the cause for which these silent dead
fought. and suffered and died was the
cause of humanity, was the foundation of
human liberty and human right, without
which there could be no prosperity
and no advance for mankind; that
the enemy fought to maintain and to
perpetuate, forever human slavery, de-
grading alike to master and slave, a
purely selfish motive and the basest that
ever entered the human heart; that the
right triumphed and triumphed while
these gallant men, whose memory we
commemorate to-day, We're passing
through the valley of the shadow of death;
that the soil in which the tree of liberty
was planted by our fathers, amidst shot
and shell and carnage and death and
weeping and mourning, was again en-
| riched by the red blood of their
descendants, inspired by the same love of
liberty and equality. And because the
cause was noble and right the nation
delights to honor even the memory of
the brave who died in its defense. The
soldiers, living and dead, who went out
to do battle in defense of the nation in
the great struggle neSd no apology,
They helped TO sustain the equal rights
of all mankind They demanded moth
ing more than the recognition of the
constitutional doctrine that all men were
created free and equal and they accepted